New Class of Constitutional Scholars

It seems like everybody on the right side of the blogosphere became a constitutional scholar over the weekend, myself included. Michael Bliss's (the real thing) article in the National Post warned of the unprecedented situation Paul Martin has dragged Canada into, ignoring centuries of historical conventions while he ignored 4 clear non-confidence votes last week (okay, at the least, the 3 adjournments are indisputably non-confidence - the first one MIGHT be debatable). In Westminster Parliamentary tradition, Paul Martin was REQUIRED to demonstrate that his government has the confidence of the House of Representatives on Wednesday of last week. The fact that our Governor-General hasn't called him on this calls into question her impartiality. The outrageous situation we are in now could have been fully avoided if Paul Martin had fulfilled his mandated role last week. Instead, he continues to play loose and fast with the democratic traditions that have been part of all Westminster traditions for longer than any of us can remember. The situation has gone from bad to worse, as his plea to wait until this coming Thursday for the budget vote, which initially just looked like a delayed non-confidence vote, is now in question whether he will even lose that vote, given the defection of Belinda Stronach from the Conservatives to the Liberals. So if the Liberals survive the budget vote, does that mean that the non-confidence votes of last week don't count at all? This is where Paul Martin has taken us, all in his quest to hold onto power. And people call Stephen Harper scary?